A comment on Shoes by Swanzie Isaacson, an old Zen friend, former Suzuki student,
and for a long time a student of Adi Da.

I have been mesmerized by Michael Downing's book unlike
all the other old Zennies I talk to about it. The main impression I have
from what I have read so far is that Mr. Downing just and only examined
the outside of the bowl, never got down into the bowl where anything of
worth was happening. So the book is all very superficial and gossipy. And
he had no sense of who Suzuki Roshi was or how extraordinary it was that
Suzuki Roshi was doing what he was doing anywhere, much less at the
epicenter of USA hippiedom at that point in the earth's turning.